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Legally Dead

A Novel

Audiobook
3 of 3 copies available
3 of 3 copies available

U.S. Marshal Michael Venturi of the Witness Protection Program relocates a mobster, now a government witness, to a small rural town after creating a new identity for him. The man proves to be a monster unleashed on an unsuspecting community. The results are tragic. To make amends Venturi leaves the Marshals Service and assembles a team of close confidants to secretly create new identities for innocent men and women whose lives have been ruined through no fault of their own--people who really deserve fresh starts in new lives. But before they are relocated and reborn, each must change a lifetime of habits and actually become someone else, with new traits, tastes, and personalities.

And before being declared "legally dead" --they have to die. The result is a combination of Extreme Makeover, Mission Impossible, and CSI--the last in reverse. In these "deaths," some of them spectacular, phony forensics must be created to fit the "facts" and fool the experts.

His fascinating experiment works--for a time. But as Venturi continues to relocate the deserving, evil begins to stalk Venturi and his legally dead clients.

Soon one is dead. Really dead.

Are the relentless killers from his own past, or was one of his clients not so innocent after all? His own loved ones are now targets because of his attempts to atone for a tragedy that haunts him.

In a desperate race to protect those he has relocated, Venturi must call upon his former training in both the U.S. Marines Force Recon and the Marshals Service, as he is hunted by police, prosecutors, ruthless killers, and his own former federal colleagues.

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  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Former U.S. Marshall and independently wealthy Mike Venturi creates new identities for people who need to disappear. Then someone finds out where the "legally dead" are and starts killing or threatening them. Helping the widowed Venturi stop the violence are his old Marine pal, Danny; Danny's wife, Luz; his mother-in-law; and a female obstetrician Mike romances. Mark Deakins reads as if he's telling the listener a story. If his tone is sometimes matter-of-fact, there's plenty of action to sustain interest. You always know which character is speaking even if, except for some accents, he doesn't differentiate them. Danny takes a shine to one of the "dead," and the romantic tension is audible. Even with all the activity, the listener might not be prepared for the explosive ending. J.B.G. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      June 16, 2008
      In this explosive first in a new suspense series from Edgar-finalist Buchanan, Michael Venturi, a deputy U.S. marshal involved in running the Federal Witness Protection Program, realizes a mobster he's in charge of, Gino Salvi, has been sexually assaulting and killing young girls in Flemington, N.H., where Salvi is hiding out. Fired by the Feds after Salvi takes part in an armored car robbery, Venturi and an old dog he's adopted head for Florida, where he and some trusted allies set upa private agency for staging fake deaths and fashioning new identities. While some of Venturi's clients appear to need a good lawyer rather than a faked death and new identity, Buchanan constructs some ingeniously clever scenarios for rendering these people “legally dead.” An expert at ratcheting up suspense and creating believable, flawed characters, Buchanan (Love Kills
      andeight other Britt Montero novels) gets thisnew series off to a powerhouse start.

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  • English

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This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Funding for additional materials was made possible by a grant from the New Hampshire Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities.